This research investigated the uses of computer-mediated communication in providing an online field experience in an educational psychology course for pre-service teachers at a large research university in the southeastern United States. Twenty-seven pre-service teachers in one section of a Psychological Foundations of Educational Psychology course for pre-service teachers, eight practicing teachers, and eight university professors participated in this study. The participants viewed CD-ROM based video case studies as part of an online field experience component and communicated electronically through chat rooms and threaded discussion lists. Data sources included transcripts of all chat room and threaded communication, surveys, field notes, observations, and student tasks and reflections, as well as interviews with the pre-service teachers, practicing teachers, university professors, and one technical support person. The methodology involved a mixed method approach. A template organizing approach with the constant comparative method was used in order to develop patterns and themes. Content analysis was applied to the content of the chat transcriptions. Finally, a quantitative component was included in the analysis of the thread transcripts with a measurement of the development of the pre-service teachers' reflective comments over time using an analysis of variance test of within subjects effects. This document reports the findings concerning the nature of the conversations among the participants as they developed across time; the learning outcomes of the students, teachers, and professors; how a computer-mediated learning environment supports reflection; the benefits and challenges of using computer-mediated communication to study and learn about educational psychology and teaching; and the benefits and challenges of creating and maintaining such a learning environment. / Ph. D.

A number of significant challenges confront effective communication in partially distributed conceptual design teams (PDCDTs), mainly due to the ill-defined and open nature of conceptual design tasks and their associated solution spaces. In contrast to co-located team members who interact face-to-face, communication difficulties among PDCDTs can intensify as a result of the physical separation of team members and their heavy reliance on communication technologies to achieve desired outcomes. Despite advances in these technologies, the ability to convey contextual and paralinguistic cues is still more limited between distant partners in comparison to face-to-face interactions. Thus, team members often experience challenges in establishing and maintaining shared understanding. In addition, partially distributed teams are more vulnerable to in-group dynamics than fully distributed or fully co-located teams. There have been substantial theoretical advances in the field of computer-mediated communication (CMC) that seek to address these challenges. Although CMC theories are hypothetically convincing and generally accepted, actual empirical findings are to some extent either unconvincing or contradictory. Moreover, questions remain about whether CMC theories can hold up in the context of non-equivalent communication technologies. The proliferation of various communication devices (e.g., smart phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops)–not to mention the growing corporate use of fully immersive telepresence technologies–means that a variety of combinations of communication devices can be used. To date, however, the majority of CMC studies have focused on the use of equivalent communication technologies (e.g., laptop to laptop). Given these practical challenges and research gaps, the overall objective of this study was to investigate how to improve shared understanding in PDCDTs. The study encompassed four distinct research threads. Study 1 conceptualized shared understanding in PDCDTs. From Study 1, factors associated with shared understanding were identified, and an input-process-output (IPO) model of shared understanding was developed. Study 2 examined the intra- and inter-sub-group communication patterns among PDCDTs. From Study 2, three different analytical approaches for exploring communication patterns were used to elucidate valuable insights into how interactions within and across sub-groups change with design tasks, as well as how individual roles and interpersonal dynamics affect those interactions. Study 3 utilized the outcomes from Study 1 (IPO model of shared understanding) to develop and validate an instrument to measure shared understanding. Lastly, Study 4 examined how different combinations of non-equivalent communication technologies impacted shared understanding in PDCDTs by using the shared understanding instrument developed from Study 3. Specifically, four types of communication technology conditions were utilized: (1) telepresence to telepresence (two different sizes), (2) telepresence to laptops, (3) telepresence to mobile devices, and (4) laptops to mobile devices. The findings revealed significant impacts of communication technologies on co-located and distant shared understanding, as well as differences between co-located and distant shared understanding for each communication technology condition. In addition, the impacts of shared understanding on different communication technology user groups were identified. Based on these findings, a number of communication technology recommendations, as well as managerial intervention strategies to operate successful PDCDTs, were developed. / Ph. D.

While digital mediation can facilitate some aspects of communication, such as increasing scope and access to communicative possibilities, those gains are overwhelmed by the challenges of digital mediation to support empathy.The ubiquity of our digital existence throughout much of the developed world has, in a relatively short time, had a profound impact on human communication. Time spent online and in front of a screen has increased exponentially during the last three decades. This has led to a great deal of interpersonal communication becoming digitally mediated. From luddites to web developers, users of digitally mediated communication (DMC) often find it necessary to participate in discourse that utilizes these technologies. In this project, I assess user experiences with DMC on interpersonal discourse to gain insight into user perceptions of empathic communication in the form of Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging. I employ survey and interviews protocols on a sampling of undergraduate students on one campus of a regional community college. While some think that DMC opens new spaces for social connections, others believe that DMC has a negative impact on our social relations by challenging empathetic connections between interlocutors. I hypothesize that empirical evidence will support this second view. Results of this investigation may be used to determine the conditions under which empathy is diminished in DMC and help us consider improved protocols for employing this ever-expanding mode of interpersonal communication. This study is unique in that it attempts to evaluate empathy, a concept that is challenging to define, describe, and measure. Hence, questions used in the survey paid attention to perceptions of empathy and survey takers' sentiments regarding the expression of empathy in text-messaging.

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a relatively new field made even more difficult to investigate by the continuous progress and changes of the digital world. There is a multitude of research on CMC from a linguistic perspective; however, the vastness of the online world makes it difficult to determine to what extent it is a welcoming or hostile environment. The existing studies of polite and impolite language use in CMC provide some insight into the type of environment found online though there is a notable lack of information regarding the overall proportionality of impolite language use, specifically violent and aggressive language use. This study aims to explore to what extent violent and aggressive language use is present in user generated comments found on the social media platform YouTube by investigating the semantic fields of violence and aggression. It is a corpus-based study of the topmost comments collected from the most popular videos in the year 2023 in the YouTube category of Reviews. The quantitative content analysis reveals that both violent and aggressive language use is present in the comments though infrequently with violent language use having a normalized frequency of 2.1 times per thousand words and aggressive language use 2.6 times per thousand words. The qualitative pragmatic analysis of the observed instances shows that only one instance carries out the illocutionary act of violence in addition to the locutionary act. Based on these findings it appears violent and aggressive language use is relatively infrequent concerning more neutral topics and in most cases the communicators do not have violent or aggressive intent in their messages.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(人間・環境学) / 甲第25378号 / 人博第1120号 / 新制||人||260(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科共生人間学専攻 / (主査)准教授 PETERSONMark, 准教授 中森 誉之, 教授 勝又 直也, 教授 Harrison Richard / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Human and Environmental Studies / Kyoto University / DGAM

The type of media shared through social media channels has shifted from text content to include an increasingly large number of images. Visual traces resulting from people's online social behavior have the potential to reveal insights about our habits, activities and preferences. The role of social network-related factors have been well studied in previous research. Yet, few studies have sought to understand how user behavior in social networks is dependent on the image itself. The goal of my dissertation is to understand how people engage with image content, and I seek to uncover the role of presentation and image content on people's preferences. To achieve this goal, I study the image sharing communities, Flickr, Instagram and Pinterest, using quantitative and qualitative methods. First, I show how colors -- a fundamental property of an image -- could impact the virality of an image on Pinterest. I consider three dimensions of color: hue, saturation and brightness and evaluate their role in the diffusion of the image on Pinterest, while controlling for social network reach and activity. Next, I shift the focus from abstract colors to a higher-level presentation of images. I study the role of filters on the Flickr mobile application as proxies to visual computation. To understand how people use filters, I conduct an interview study with 15 Flickr mobile users about their filter use. I analyze Flickr mobile images to discover the role of filters in engaging users. Presentation is not the only factor that makes an image interesting. To gain deeper insights in what makes an image more engaging in social image sharing sites, I study the images of people on the Instagram network. I compare images of people with those that do not have faces and find that images with human faces are more engaging. I also look at the role of age and gender of people in the image in engaging users. Finally, I examine different content categories, with and without filters, and study the impact of content category on engagement. I use large-scale data from Flickr and interviews with Flickr mobile users to draw insights into filter use and content engagement. This dissertation takes a first step toward understanding content and presentation of images and how they impact one aspect of user behavior online. It provides several theoretical and design implications for effective design, creation and imposition of rules on image sharing communities. This dissertation opens up a new direction for future research in multimedia-mediated communication.

Bakgrund: Svensk hälso- och sjukvård har som mål att god vård på lika villkor skall ges till hela befolkningen. Därmed ställs krav på att samhället tillgodoser vårdsökandes behov av kommunikationshjälp i vårdkontakter. Många studier belyser vikten av god kommunikation patienter och vårdgivare emellan. Studier saknas som beskriver BVC-sköterskans erfarenheter av att arbeta via tolk. Syfte: Att beskriva BVC-sköterskans erfarenheter och reflektioner av att arbeta på BVC när kommunikationen med barnen och deras vårdnadshavare sker via tolk. Metod: Intervjustudie med kvalitativ ansats och deskriptiv design med sju informanter. Analysmetod: kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: BVC-sköterskan ställs ofta inför svårigheter i arbetet när tolk måste användas men ser en glädje i och en vilja till att göra dessa möten så bra som möjligt. Förutsättningar för lyckade tolksamtal relaterade till att tolken var en lugn, förberedd, ackrediterad sjukvårdstolk, helst kvinnlig platstolk, med rätt dialekt, att BVC-sköterskan själv var tydlig i kommunikationen, att samtalsklimatet tillät frågor samt att en stödjande chef tillät ett självständigt arbetsupplägg. BVC-sköterskan ställdes ofta inför svårigheter relaterade till tolkens förhållningssätt, kunskaper och könstillhörighet, familjers önskemål som stred emot vad BVC-sköterskan ansåg bäst, störande ljud under tolksamtalet, tidsstyrt arbete, vilken tolkservice som upphandlats samt svårigheter vid telefontolkning pga. dålig teknisk utrustning. Slutsats: För att BVC-sköterskans positiva inställning ska bibehållas trots svårigheter i tolksamtal behövs ökat stöd och högre prioritet för området tolkning från chefer med fokus på att BVC-sköterskan ska kunna välja den samtalsform som fungerar bäst i tolksamtalet, att den tekniska utrustningen förbättras samt utbildningsmöjligheter för BVC-sköterskan i samtal via tolk. / Background: The Swedish health care law has the aim to give good and equal health care to the entire population. Provision of communication support should therefore be available if needed when encountering health care. Studies highlights the importance of good communication between patients and caregivers. Aim: To describe primary child health nurse’s experiences and reflections of working with children and their caretakers in interpreter mediated communication. Method: Interviews with seven informants, qualitative approach and descriptive design. Analyze method: qualitative content analysis. Result: The primary child health nurse often faces difficulties in the work situation when an interpreter is needed but looks a joy in and a willingness to make these meetings as good as possible. Contributing factors to successful interpreting mediated communication were related to; calm interpreter behavior, preparedness, accredited medical interpreter education, speaking the patient’s accent, being on-site and preferably a female interpreter. Successful factors related to the primary child health nurse included; calm behavior, distinct communication, an open-minded attitude allowing questions and a supportive manager allowing the nurses to plan their work independently. Problems facing the primary child health nurse was related to the interpreter’s dedication and knowledge, gender, family wishes versus the primary child health nurse thoughts of being the best interventions, noises during interpreter mediated conversations, time controlled work, interpreter service company, difficulties in telephone interpreted calls because of poor technical equipment. Conclusion: To keep up the primary child health nurse’ positive attitude despite difficulties in interpreter mediated communication it’s necessary with an increased manager support and higher priority of this subject, focusing that the nurse should be able to choose the best communication form, improvement of the technical equipment and to obtain interpreter mediated communication education.

The effectiveness of e-mail writing has been exhaustively studied and reported on, especially in Taiwan. However, there has not been any research carried out on the topics that mainland Chinese university students enjoy writing about when corresponding with their Western epals, nor does the literature report research on writing e-mails to two groups of epals simultaneously. This study explores what issues concerned the participants when they exchanged e-mails with their Western epals and how they viewed their cross-cultural learning experience. The participants were 28 mainland Chinese second-year English majors who voluntarily corresponded with 28 American high school pupils and 28 Western adult epals for about two months in Autumn 2006. The data of this exploratory interpretative research was mainly collected from their e-mails, ‘final reports’, the mid-project questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. The study found that the topics the participants enjoyed writing about actually depended on with whom they were corresponding. With the younger school pupils, they tended to look for friendship by talking about pastimes, their own high school experience, etc. To the more sophisticated adult epals though, they wrote largely about personal matters, on which they seemed to be covertly seeking advice. However, some topics were common to both groups and were equally popular – for example, school and daily life. The data also reveals that the majority of the participants enjoyed the experience and overall had positive views about it. These fall into three broad categories of learning: language, cultural, and communication. However, some experienced minor difficulties and problems in these areas, particularly regarding the communication aspect. Meanwhile, in the process of the participants multiediting their ‘final reports’, learning seems to have occurred between their first and final drafts – perhaps as a result of responding to the researcher’s written feedback, which seemed to make a significant difference. The implications arising from the study suggest that the students’ interest in it stimulated their engagement with learning - though the findings are tentative. Some recommendations for further research are also given.

The potential of community building through computer-mediated communication (CMC) in virtual learning environments has received increasing attention in recent years, yet little empirical research has been conducted in this field in Middle Eastern countries particularly based on a social constructivist approach as in this case. This research is concerned with the processes of community building as experienced by university students in computer-mediated distance education classes in Iran. Its overarching concern was to see if convergence happens in an on-line university discussion forum in a Middle Eastern cultural context, and if so, to explore how it happens and with what strategies it can be supported in such environment. The research addressed the role of collaborative interaction as the process of co-construction of knowledge and identities, by looking at: (i) the students’ beliefs as reflected in a survey; (ii) patterns and outcomes of interaction derived from an analysis of on-line transactions; (iii) students’ perspectives based on interviews and their responses to a survey. The participants came from four different Middle Eastern cultural and linguistic backgrounds and were all students studying at Masters Level. The academic context was an Iranian university that has a large face-to-face student population as well as a large number of distance students. The participants’ common meeting ground was primarily a virtual environment created for the students to share their learning experience and to communicate with each other and the tutors. The participants’ beliefs and ideas in terms of choice, opportunity, culture and expectations were examined through a survey in the first phase of the study. Then, to investigate their roles in shaping the on-line community, an additional university e-forum was designed and implemented by the researcher in the second phase of the study. In this forum the participants were free to contact each other without pre-planned tasks or interventions by the class tutors. Social constructivist approaches were used to analyse interactions between students and the outcomes of these interactions. The findings suggest that participants moved their communicative competence from tangible topics towards shaping new beliefs and ideas; creating the VSD-Virtual Social Development- model. These developments are regarded as something unique for an area such as the Middle East where gaining confidence is hard especially when there is no face-to-face contact with other participants, and individuals often have concerns about revealing their real personalities in untried situations. The findings of the interviews support the findings of the second phase of the study and show what strategies the participants used in community building. The research also highlighted many issues for further study, one of which is the various interpretations of the concept of community building in on-line contexts.

The objective of this study was to observe evidence of structural transfer among subjects in a group problem-solving activity and determine whether mode of collaborative technology or use of a priming agent affected the nature of transferred structures. Evidence for structural transfer is found in three theoretical perspectives: organizational ditransitive (linguistic) verb structures, adaptive structuration theory, and mental model transfer theory. Dependent variables included various grammatical structures and coefficients derived from pretest and posttest scores on David Kolb's Learning Styles Inventory, modified for the experiment. The combination of changes in grammatical frequencies and learning style may suggest that one or more media or the priming agent may affect structural transfer. Results indicate that groups using the GroupSystems™ collaborative technology produced less overall linguistic content than did subjects using a generic chat system, but employed more complex language as indicated by frequency of the organizational ditransitive verb structure. Also, subjects supplied with an organization chart (priming agent) during the group problem-solving session experienced greater change on the learning styles inventory than did those participating in the session without the chart. These findings suggest that mode of communication and use of priming agents may contribute positively or negatively to the transfer of structures among group members. Researchers, collaborative system designers, organizational leaders, trainers & educators, and frequent collaborative technology system end-users should be aware of these potential affects. Suggestions for future research are provided. Relationship of theoretical foundations of structural transfer to constructivism is discussed.